


iridaceae

by silent_h



Series: tumblr prompts [1]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supervillains, F/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-07-01 12:58:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15774585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silent_h/pseuds/silent_h
Summary: kendrasaunders:WHERE! IS! IRIS’! SEXY! VILLAIN! ALTER! EGO!like not like THE poison ivy but sexy plant based villain? come on. barry is already ready for her to murder him





	iridaceae

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kendrasaunders](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kendrasaunders/gifts).



> tumblr post [here](https://yesokayiknow.tumblr.com/post/160320709745/iridaceae)
> 
> (it really took me a whole year and a half to put this on ao3 huh)

It isn’t planned, the first time, but she’s tired and hungry and thinking about the way Wally beamed at her over the row of A’s on his high school report card, and the carefully casual way he’d dropped the word  _college_  into the conversation, and, well. She’s never even thought of doing something like this, but she has years of dodging the kids of the criminals her dad put away and the pitying stares of the neighbours after her mom overdosed, years of fighting tooth and nail for the foster system to give her custody of Wally after their dad died; it’s almost too easy to lean over and lift the twenty-dollar bill from the pocket of the man on the bus seat next to her.

She keeps waiting for the guilt to hit her, but they  _both_  have food that night, for the first time in  _weeks_ , and it never comes.

It’s meant to be only that one time, but no one will hire a college dropout with a kid, and Harrison Wells’ slowing growing particle accelerator brings wave after wave of rich academics.

 

(she spent years listening to her dad tell her that crime doesn’t pay.

she decides that it does)

 

A purse from an obnoxious tourist, a watch from a man with grabby hands; it gets easier every time. Once, Iris manages to take a whole suitcase from a distracted professor. It’s the first year that they can afford to keep the heating on for the whole of winter.

There’s a voice in her head sometimes, her dad’s voice tinged with disappointment, but then Wally complains about his course load, or tells her haltingly about the cute TA in his class, and it goes silent.

She finally gets a job, part time at the new coffee shop in the middle of the city, and she knows that it’s an out. That she should stop. She doesn’t.

 

And so it goes. Barista by day and petty thief by… other parts of the day. It’s funny the things you can get used to.

 

And then the particle accelerator explodes.

 

She wakes up the next morning to ancient whispers curling in the back of her mind. She breathes, and the grass outside sways as her chest rises. She laughs, and purple irises sprout up from the box on the windowsill.

_Oh_ , she thinks.

_She is life itself_ , and oh, but she could do anything with this. Be  _anything_.

 

The electric bill arrives the next morning.

Well.

She’s always wanted to see if she could steal something bigger than a suitcase.

 

(it turns out that she can. is it bad that finds it fun?

she decides that it isn’t)

 

She doesn’t mean to pick up a partner, has never wanted to drag someone else into this life, but Iris may be a criminal and a thief (and a metahuman? is that what they’re calling it?) but she isn’t a bad neighbour, and so when she realises that she hasn’t seen the quiet doctor from across the road for nearly a week she decides to check in on her.

Caitlin Snow stares at her with wide, hungry eyes, tendrils of frost reaching out from the corner she’s curled into, and this could be a bad idea, but Iris has never been the type of person that could walk away from someone in need of help.

 

The first time they try to pull off a job together, Iris ends up with a bullet graze across her arm and Caitlin nearly kills a cop. She decides that this is definitely a bad idea.

 

She goes to tell Caitlin that it isn’t working, and finds her smiling at the snowdrops poking out through the snow underneath her window ledge.

 

(it’s the first time that iris has ever seen her smile.

she decides that this isn’t a bad idea)

 

Wally hands her the envelope not long after, something that a lecturer of his gave him before he went on sick leave and that he’d only just found at the bottom of his backpack.

_Iris West_ , it says, in handwriting that seems to change with every letter,  _please help_. 

 

His name is Cisco Ramon, and he stares at her with wide, unseeing eyes, and tells her that it’s easier in the worlds that they are friends, and this, she thinks, is it. This is the one idea too bad even for her. He has a seizure twenty minutes after she arrives and while she panics, her vines gently curl around him. 

_Told you_ , he says, grinning, when he comes to,  _told you you could help_.

 

(she takes him to caitlin to see if she can help with his headaches, and he coaxes a smile out of her quicker than anything iris has seen before.

she decides that she’s never letting him leave)

 

It should feel weird, being part of a team after so many years of working alone, but there is  _something_  about these people, about the way Cisco suddenly bursts into song and the way Iris always joins in, purposely out of key, and the surprised way Caitlin laughs every time; about the way that Cisco and Iris learn to carry matches in case Caitlin suddenly has a cold flare, and Iris and Caitlin learn how to ground Cisco when he slides too deep into another world, and Cisco and Caitlin learn to avoid stepping onto plants. It should feel weird, being part of a team, but Iris looks at these people and thinks  _family_ , and maybe that’s why it’s not.

 

It’s Cisco who makes the suits and Caitlin who finds the abandoned warehouse they decide to use as their base, but it’s Iris who picks the name.  _Rogues_.

 

(it makes caitlin snort, and cisco grin in the way that means he’s smiling at something only he can see.

she decides that it’s perfect)

 

It’s easier then, with three of them, with Cisco to guide them through the comms with a distracted running commentary and Caitlin to provide increasingly sarcastic backup and Iris to not so gently remind them both to pay attention when you’re robbing the most heavily guarded bank in Central, you idiots.

 

She’s a real life supervillain, and Wally’s at the top of his classes and Caitlin smiles more easily and Cisco is more present and flowers line every side of her street and, for the first time in very long time, she is happy.

 

(there are stories, though. stories of a red streak who runs faster than any person ever has, and who catches criminals before they can even finish carrying out the crime

she decides that they aren’t real)

 

They decide to rob the Central City Museum, because they’re tired of banks and armoured trucks.

Because they’re bored and they want to test out the museum’s new security system. Because they want to take a strike against elitism.

 

Because some reason that doesn’t matter, because they’ve only just arrived and then she blinks, and there’s a person. Not a particularly tall or wide or imposing person, but a  _person_ , where a second ago there was just an empty space, and  _she didn’t sense him coming_.

 

Every plant in this city is hers. Every blade of grass, every tree, every flower. Nothing happens without her being aware of it. She can tell the second the seasons change, and when the police are on their way, and when a stranger is walking down her street, but she didn’t know that he was coming until he was standing in front of her.

 

And she can tell by the sudden flash of Caitlin’s eyes and the surprised silence over the comms that they didn’t sense him either.

 

They only escape because he’s distracted. By their powers, by their suits, by whoever’s on the other end of his earpiece, and the fact that they have someone on the end of theirs. Always talking and always genuinely excited. He’d get on well with Cisco, she thinks, and that’s what’s she’s thinking as she finally manages to trip him up with a well-placed vine.

 

This is the point where they should stop.

 

( _well?_  she says, when they arrive back at the base, and caitlin bares her teeth and cisco has already sketched out half a dozen new designs

she decides that they’re not going to stop)

 

They end up meeting him at nearly every heist they pull after that.

He’s  _fast_ , and it feels stupid to still be surprised but she can’t help it. She’s never met anyone that could outrun her vines, or duck Caitlin’s ice spears, or break Cisco’s tech, and she’d never thought to call her previous life boring, but she’s never realised how much she was holding back every time she used her powers.

 

(at home, wally raves about his new-found idol, and she toys with the idea of telling him that his new hero is being constantly outfoxed by his big sister

she decides that it would be too petty, but it’s a very near thing)

 

It becomes a game, almost. How long can they stay at a crime scene before he arrives. How fast does he have to run to dodge her vines. How long will this plant’s toxin slow him down for. How many times can she make him blush.

 

Because  _oh_ , but he’s awfully cute, this scarlet speedster.

 

( _bad idea_ , she thinks,  _bad, bad idea_

she decides that that’s what makes it fun)

**Author's Note:**

> man i gotta write more of this


End file.
